I’ve written about the Rookie of the Year race at length and each time, my conclusion was similar: There was a unique depth to the field this year where you could make a case for any number of players. Eric Hosmer’s late September charge put him on the radar, but the race was so wide open, he merely got himself in the conversation. In the hours prior to the announcement, I tweeted that I was so unsure of the results, I could see Hosmer finishing anywhere from first to fourth.

Turns out I was (pretty much) spot on. The voters seemed to agree that there were so many players worthy of consideration, not a single rookie was named on every ballot. I didn’t go through the history of ROY voting, but that just seems amazing to me.

In the end, Jeremy Hellickson takes home the hardware, with Mark Trumbo second, The Hos taking third and Ivan Nova finishing fourth.

There are 28 voters for the AL ROY (technically two from each AL city) and each voter lists their three choices. Here’s how many ballots each player earned:

Hosmer finished ahead of Nova in the final balloting because the bulk of Nova’s votes were for third place. Hosmer’s were spread a little more evenly between the three slots. Some takeaways from the voting:

— The initial knee jerk reaction I saw on Twitter from Royals fans was disbelief that Hosmer was left off of 14 votes. I would hope that when they saw how fractured the voting was, they calmed down. Again, there was just a ton of candidates and you can make a case for all of them. (Well, except Trumbo… More on that in a second.)

While it’s nice for the hometown guy to get the recognition, it’s not that big of a deal. Especially the Rookie of the Year award. I know I’ll catch hell from Nick for not referring to the Jackie Robinson Award (it’s rightful name) but maybe we should change it to the Joe Charboneau Award. It seems there have been more winners who have flamed out than have gone to the Hall of Fame.

— I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that while Hellickson was the clear favorite among the majority, the voters who listed Trumbo second, most likely had Nova third on their ballot. Makes sense, doesn’t it? The voters who swoon for home runs and RBI would also go for wins, right?

— That Trumbo earned so much consideration isn’t really surprising to me. Yes, I know about the .291 OBP, but he had a couple things going for him that no other hitter had. One, voters dig the long ball. And two, he was the only rookie hitter to play the entire season in the bigs.

Counting stats are still huge among members of the electorate, and the only way to rack up the big numbers is to play the whole season. With Hosmer arriving in May, Ackley in June and Jennings in July, these three will ultimately be superior players to Trumbo (I’m betting) but they had had a distinct disadvantage this year.

— After the strides that have been made in the MVP and (especially) the Cy Young awards, it’s odd that the ROY still fights this battle. Chalk it up to the unique nature of the award and the fact that often, the winner does not play the full season. It surprised me that Ackley got such lukewarm support. He played a premium defensive position and

— Defensive metrics hurt The Hos. Again, we’ve discussed this at length, but for some reason the defensive measurements that help define WAR despised Hosmer. If some “enlightened” voter decided to look beyond the HR and RBI and examine some advanced numbers, they would have seen Hosmer’s fWAR and rWAR were depressed.

Hosmer’s 1.6 fWAR was behind not only Trumbo, Jennings and Ackley, but Josh Reddick and Jemile Weeks as well. His 1.3 rWAR is below everyone who received a vote except Walden.

— There needs to be more transparency in the process. The BBWAA doesn’t need to make every ballot public, but we should be able to find out who the voters are for each award. Some of the best articles I read every winter are from voters and their thought process behind their ballot. I respect those guys who give us a peek behind the curtain so to speak.

— Finally, I cast a ballot for ESPN’s SweetSpot Network and ranked the AL Rookie of the Year award:

Comments

You think being 20 games under .500 every single year has something to do with it?

Shields, Price, Moore, Hellickson…now look at the garbage Dayton wants to trot out there and considers it competing. The hot stove in KC consists of finding the next Graffanino and giving him a 3 year deal.

Written by Ron about 3 years ago.

It’s the Rookie of the “Year” award, not the Rookie of the “Future”. Only this year matters.

And why do we need transparency? This country is based on the secret ballot, from Presidential elections to the student council in grade school.

We have the right to know who won. There is no implied right to know who voted for whom.

Ron – I didn’t ask for the voters to reveal their ballots. I merely would like to have a list of the voters. The BBWAA is a large organization, but only 28 members vote for the AL awards. It would be nice to know who has a ballot and for what.

Written by Ted about 3 years ago.

Tampa is exceptional in their ability to identify and develop outstanding pitchers, that is what makes their system so dynamic and highly regarded. It is not just the Royals who have trouble developing starting pitching, though we do seem to break our prospects/fail to develop our guys more than other. Anyway, the point is that everyone can recognize a Stephen Strasburg, but only a few teams are capable of spotting the talent in a guy like Moore and then also developing that talent. I think Moore has done a pretty good job of spotting the talent hidden in drafts both for position players and pitchers. That the guys have not developed on a timeline that suits our needs does not make them bad picks or busts…it is just too early to tell.

Written by Daniel about 3 years ago.

Axl, are you a time traveler from 2006?

Written by Zack Daddy about 3 years ago.

I don’t buy the claim that Tampa is exceptional in identifying and developing pitchers. Not to say effective coaching hasn’t helped, but I think a lot of luck has been key, the same luck that allowed Oakland to have a rotation of dominance in the late 90s and turn of the century. Atlanta in the early 90s, too. There’s no reason to think KC couldn’t have similar luck. The potential is there. The depth and quantity increases the chance for breakout candidates. The jury is still out for the coaching impact, but I think coaching doesn’t carry as much weight as luck. It can, of course, hurt things–Meche too long, Greinke too early. Davies at all. Sometimes coaches get in the way more than they have the opportunity to improve things–on a pitching level.

Written by Greg about 3 years ago.

“The depth and quantity increases the chance for breakout candidates”

This is the most important point in my mind. We need a lot more pitching. We should be exploring options to acquire said pitching at all times. For instance, I would put the chances of the Royals signing Oswalt at somewhere south of 5%, but it does make sense to speak with his agent and do due diligence. Same with Jurjjens (sp?). I don’t want him for near what the Braves seem to be asking, but he’d be a quality addition for the right price. We need two more rotation candidates for this coming year and maybe a half-dozen additional (or more) quality ones in the organization. Don’t wait until next year to continue addressing the glaring weakness.

Written by Ted about 3 years ago.

I think when a club is consistently drafting and developing quality players then some skill is involved. Luck is always a factor, but like the saying goes, luck is when opportunity is met with preparation.

Written by kcghost about 3 years ago.

I strongly believe the voters were not at all effected by the defensive metrics hatred of Hos. People evaluate defense with there eyes and to the eye Hos seems like a well above average 1B. Hellickson had a better season as a rookie pitcher than Hos did as a 1B. The Trumbo thing is just the typical BBWAA over evaluation of a single counting stat.